Cruising For Kids Part One

Posted on February 16, 2012 by CruiseMiss — Leave a comment

Today i want to introduce to you Abigail, my younger sister. In 2010 I took Abigail on her first cruise and she fell in love with it. I thought having her write a blog on her own experiences might be good for those of you who are maybe thinking of cruising with kids for the first time or those of you that are maybe being told by your kids that a cruise just is not for them. I am sure once they read this they will change their mind.

Abigail & Celebrity Eclipse

I was twelve when I went on my first cruise and was absolutely stunned by the sheer wonderment of the whole experience. Looking back now I think one of the best bits may have been the anticipation I experienced whilst driving down to Southampton because it is something I have never felt before. However saying that, the whole cruise itself was truly incredible and is something I will never forget. It was the funniest holiday I have ever been on and I would love to do it again.

The excitement starts when you first leave for your journey to Southampton and it lasts the whole way getting bigger and bigger the closer you get. The size of the ship when you first see it in port is truly amazing.

Testing out her "Orange Friend"

Once on board, there are millions of things to do. If like me, you love the adrenaline rush you get when you do something daring, then the bungee jumping is the perfect activity to do. You feel like you’re flying and you get the most amazing feeling as you come crashing back onto the trampoline. I tried it and wanted to go on again and again because it is fantastic and really fun. If though you prefer to just chill in the pool peacefully with your friends, then there are three pools on Ventura that you can splash about in and cool off in from the scorching heat of the Mediterranean. Or if that doesn’t take your fancy you could always go to the kids club and join in whatever fun activity is taking place. Whilst I was on the ship, the activities ranged from making things in “Can’t cook won’t cook” to designing clothes and the modelling them in “Miss Ventura” to placing a bet in the “Night at the casino”- obviously not literally. There are tons of things to do for kids during the night too; there are shows to go and see in the arena. The best show I saw was Chronicles, an acrobatic show that just amazed you with the skills of the participants. I ended up leaving the arena totally dazed by the show and wished I could see it again.

One of the main things for kids to do is to join the kids’ club and mix with other kids that are around their age. Originally I was hesitant about going to the kids’ club and felt that I would rather be spending time with my sister but after I had attended for one night and had met some other girls my age, I realised that I would rather be there having a good time with friends I had made from around the country then with my sister whilst she sunbathed. I didn’t go to the kids’ club everyday but on the days that I did I had a really great time and it made the cruise better because I was with people who liked the same things as me and who understood me better.

Abigail at Cirque Ventura

The activities and games that you do in the kids’ club vary massively. One day I was taking part in an air hockey tournament, the next I was making ice cream sundaes- there is something for everyone and if they are taking part in a main activity that you don’t want to do, then there is plenty of other things that you can be doing in the club for instance the dance machines and PlayStations. The kids’ club provides night-time entertainment too; it includes things such as “Ventura’s got talent”, “Girls night in/boys night out” and one off my favourites “Guy o’ guy”- in which there was a number of boys all lined up on the side of the pool, there were different rounds in which they had to do different things and each round us, girls got to choose who should be pushed in the pool and out of the game until there was one left. It was so much fun! The boys even enjoyed it. Another of the fun activities that we did that I remember well was (as I mentioned earlier) “can’t cook, won’t cook” this was where we got into teams and were given a list of ingredients. We then had to choose what we were going to make out of these ingredients; we were given fruit, custard, biscuits and chocolate sprinkles and so decided to make trifle. Although in the end the trifle didn’t turn out well, we didn’t care because we had fun making it and ended up covered in chocolate and custard.

One of the night-time activities that I really enjoyed was the one that they hosted in the kids’ club on the day that we went to Barcelona. It was a version of “Shipwrecked” in which we were put into two teams and had to compete in different challenges and games in order to win the overall game. This was really fun because the challenges were things such as “who had the best den” and a treasure hunt. It was then followed by a party in Havana (one of the bars on board Ventura). The adults weren’t too thrilled that we had gate-crashed their bar but we didn’t really care and had an amazing time dancing and singing alone to the music.

Author: Abigail

Tomorrow will bring part 2 of Abigial’s adventure